Don't make poor Craig the patsy for failings

Jeff Powell

Last updated at 00:00 07 September 2001

PITY Craig Brown as he is driven to the precipice by the clansmen brandishing their claymores.

For Scotland even to be going into their last World Cup qualifying match with so much as a mathematical chance is a tribute to how shrewdly their manager has husbanded his desperately meagre resources.

If Brown's fellow Scots question that, they should ask why the ceiling of their ambitions appears to be merely reaching the Finals while England's managers stand and fall on how close they come to winning the World Cup.

Despite being vilified for achieving nothing better than draws against the technically superior Belgians and Croatians, not once has Brown used the uneven quality of the players at his disposal as an excuse.

This good man deserves a better fate than to be pushed over the edge by a mob enraged above all at losing its laddies' outing to the fitba'.

.JUST as TV ratings for The Premiership are falling, along come England to the rescue. Nothing changes.

Ramsey and Moore in '66, then Venables and Gascoigne in '96 turned the nation football-crazy.

But chairmen were soon saying club should come before country.

The Premiership resumes in all its hype and self-importance tomorrow. Be sure that denial of England's importance to the people will not be far behind.